Today on his radio show, Glenn Beck discussed Barack Obama’s campaign video, “The Road We’ve Traveled,” with his Kindergarten Krew (did you know that Beck still has a radio show?). It will surprise no one that Beck & Company didn’t think much of it. But it is sad to learn that he is still suffering from a severe case of Nazi Tourettes Syndrome.
It seems that Beck can’t go for more than a few minutes without accusing someone of being a Nazi. The unfortunate victim today was that inscrutable villain, Tom Hanks. Most Americans are already familiar with the evil character of Hanks, a man who is known widely as a philanthropist and supporter of military families. What a brilliant cover for his ghastly abominations.
Beck singled out Hanks for his work as the narrator of the Obama film (posted below). Apparently that act alone has earned Hanks the enmity of Beck who now regards Hanks as the moral equivalent of Nazi propagandist, Leni Riefenstahl.
Beck: Tom Hanks, you should be proud of the work you’ve done in this propaganda film. What was the name of that propaganda artist for Hitler? […] Her name is Leni Riefenstahl. Tom…seriously, you made a great movie and it will go down in history much like Riefenstahl’s work did, and I think that’s great, and congratulations on that and best of luck to you in the future. Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.
That’s all it takes for Beck to associate someone with a regime of genocidal murderers. Just because Hanks supports a Democratic president for reelection, he is now, in Beck’s view, in league with Hitler’s generals. And if merely doing the voice-over for a campaign video earns this sort of condemnation, just imagine what Beck must think of the hundreds of campaign staffers who are actually working everyday to advance the electoral prospects of the President. And of course the millions of Americans who are planning on voting for Obama are no better than the violently brainwashed Germans of the 1930’s and 1940’s. As for Obama himself, is Anti-Christ too strong a word?
We don’t hear too much about Beck since he was unceremoniously dumped by Fox News because no advertiser would permit their ads to be shown during his program. Apparently he hasn’t changed a bit. It’s good to know that his repulsive ramblings are now being heard by only a fraction of his previous television audience, and only by those who are deluded enough to pay for it. Although he still has a sizable radio audience, his influence has shrunk to near invisibility. Yet he thinks that Tom Hanks is on the way out.
It just goes to show you what a good case of hallucinatory psychosis will do for the ego of a former morning zoo DJ that nobody pays attention to anymore.
In a meeting with Russian President Medvedev this morning, President Obama had an unfortunate ‘hot mic’ incident that will surely cause a few headaches in the West Wing for a day or two. The following exchange was recorded by reporters:
Obama: On all these issues, but particularly missile defense, this, this can be solved but it’s important for him to give me space.
Medvedev: Yeah, I understand. I understand your message about space. Space for you…
Obama: This is my last election. After my election I have more flexibility.
There really isn’t anything controversial about that statement. In fact, it would be regarded as an obvious truism by anyone with knowledge of American politics. Election year negotiations, whether foreign or domestic, are always impacted by concerns that weigh more heavily on campaigning than on substance.
Nevertheless, it was an inconvenient soundbite that can easily be misconstrued by the President’s opponents. While the only message Obama was conveying was that difficult concessions by both sides would become more plausible without electoral concerns hanging over their heads, Republicans were quick to jump on the gaffe as having more sinister implications. But nobody went to further extremes than the hyper-conspiracy freaks over at Breitbart’s place where they headlined their story: Obama to Putin: I’ll Surrender America After Re-election.
Really? Breitbrat Joel Pollak seems to actually believe that Obama has a secret agenda to make America subservient to Russia. I’m not sure I can explain what purpose would be served by such an agenda, but the Breitbrats probably think that it’s just part of an overall plot to destroy America by the Kenyan-born socialist usurper in the White House. One question that remains is why Obama would surrender to the Russians rather than to the Iranians with whom he allegedly shares a belief in Islam. But trying to find logic in the delusional schemes of these right-wing extremists is not a recommended exercise. It will almost always lead to failure and probably a bad migraine.
For the past year or so, Fox News has been mercilessly bashing Chevrolet’s new electric vehicle, the Volt. They have derided it as an unsafe, unpopular, taxpayer-funded boondoggle, that was foisted on the auto industry and the public by President Obama as part of his socialist agenda.
This well-coordinate media assault encompassed conservative television, radio, newspapers, and Internet, and was an unprecedented effort aimed squarely at an American made product. They disparaged the company, the car, and the American workers who produced it. This vilification of the Volt has been most prominently featured on Fox News properties, where it has been the subject of withering criticism, despite the fact that it is also the North American Car of the Year and the European Car of the Year for 2011, the first time a car has won both honors.
This makes this morning’s segment on Fox & Friends, with media consultant Lee Spieckerman, all the more curious. Host Steve Doocy introduced his guest for a segment titled “Can the Chevy Volt Help Win the War on Terror?” by saying that, “It’s a great car that’s gotten a bad rap, all because of President Obama’s record, perhaps.”
For Doocy to suggest that the Volt has gotten a bad rap because of Obama’s record is absurd. It has gotten a bad rap because people like Doocy, and his comrades at Fox, have endeavored to malign the car because President Obama has expressed support for it. It has less to do with Obama’s record than with the Obama Derangement Syndrome that results in right-wingers hating anything that Obama likes. If Doocy wonders where the hostility toward the Volt comes from, he might trying looking at the Fox Nation web site, whose recent headlines illustrate just how committed they are to trashing the Volt and tying it to Obama:
Obama’s Chevy Volt Gets ‘Worst Product’ Award
Obama’s Chevy Volt Recalled
Obama Hikes Failing Chevy Volt Subsidies
Obama Still Supporting Chevy Volt
Obama’s Favorite Car, Chevy Volt, Under Investigation
More Problems For The Chevy Volt
Forbes: Maybe It Should Be Called the Chevrolet ‘Vote’
GM Suspends Volt Production, Lays Off 1300 Workers
Chevy Dealers Reject Volt
Each Chevy Volt Costs Taxpayers $250000
Newt: ‘You Can’t Put a Gun Rack In a Volt’
More Ridiculous Leftist Propaganda: The Chevy Volt Song
Chevy Volt Sales Fail
Two Chevy Volts Catch Fire in One Week!
Chevy Volt is Automotive Version of Solyndra
Taxpayers Getting Scammed by Chevy Volt?
Gov’t Motors’ Chevy Volt Battery Fire Sparks Probe
Sales of Chevy Volt Plummet
FAIL: Sweater, Gloves Required When Driving Volt in Cold
The Chevy Volt is a Disaster
Hmm. I wonder how the Chevy Volt got such a bad rap.
Nevertheless, this morning Doocy’s tone had changed. He spent the entirety of the segment agreeing with his guest who sought to dispel the myths associated with the Volt. Spieckerman’s enthusiasm sounded like it could have come from an ardent environmentalist, which is why he had to keep qualifying his comments with affirmations of his conservative credentials.
Spieckerman: You know, I’m a Texan. I’m a “drill baby drill” guy. And, unfortunately, I love Fox News and I feel like I’m kind of attacking my own family because I love O’Reilly, I love Neil Cavuto, I love Eric Bolling, but like a lot of my fellow conservatives, they seem to have kind of a fetish for demonizing the Volt. And they’re perpetuating this myth that the Volt was some kind of Obama administration green energy fantasy that was forced on General Motors during the bailout. It had been in development two years before Obama was elected. It had been championed by one of the greatest car executives in American history, Bob Lutz, who is a conservative and a climate change skeptic. So it’s a myth. You know the tax break for buying the Volt was implemented by the Bush administration. That was not something that occurred under the Obama administration.
Spieckerman described the Volt as “an anti-terrorist weapon” because of its potential to reduce our dependence on foreign oil. He pointed out that in ten years we could be saving almost 700 billion barrels of oil a year. He called it the iPhone of the automobile industry. And all the while Doocy was grinning and nodding and even called the Volt “a cool vehicle.”
Something obviously occurred to shift the direction of Fox’s perspective on the Volt. It is a 180 degree turnaround that was sprung without explanation or any acknowledgement of their previous position (“We have always been in love with the Volt.” ~ Paraphrasing Orwell). Perhaps they recognized that bashing American workers was not a particularly good idea in an election year. Perhaps they were worried about whether it might impact GM’s advertising expenditures on Fox. Or maybe it was just an anomaly and they will return to assailing the car and its builders tomorrow.
There is one thing for which we can be certain, if they continue with their new found admiration for the Volt, they will soon be publishing stories about how Obama never liked it and has been working to kill it ever since he came into office. For Fox News, Orwell’s 1984 was not cautionary fiction – it was a handbook.
Let’s face it, Fox News is unabashedly opposed to Barack Obama and everything his administration represents. The network has virtually conceded that it is nothing more than a promotional vehicle for conservative Republican politics and politicians.
Now Fox News has stepped even further across the line of objectivity by taking up the case of a Marine sergeant whose adventures in social media are blatantly disrespectful to his superiors and teeter toward insubordination or worse.
Sergeant Gary Stein is the founder of a Facebook page called “Armed Forces Tea Party.” According to reports from the Associated Press, Stein had been informed that he was in violation of Pentagon policy prohibiting political activities. The policy specifically forbids military personnel from using contemptuous words against senior officials, including the defense secretary or the president. At first Stein cooperated with his commanders by taking down the Facebook page, but he later restored it based on his own conclusion that he was not in violation of any code. As a result, he is now the subject of an administrative action that could result in a discharge.
Stein is adamant that he is innocent of any infraction. he contends that he was exercising his free speech rights by posting messages in which he declared that he would refuse to follow any order issued by the President, his commander-in-chief, that he deemed unlawful.
“I’m completely shocked that this is happening,” Stein said. “I’ve done nothing wrong. I’ve only stated what our oath states that I will defend the constitution and that I will not follow unlawful orders. If that’s a crime, what is America coming to?”
Technically, I agree with Stein on the matter of a soldier’s obligation to refuse to follow an unlawful order. That is a standard set after World War II that resulted in the inadmissibility of the defense that “I was just following orders.” But Stein had better have a damn good basis (and an opinion from a legal expert) before he engages in what might constitute mutiny. Stein had no such basis when he chose to ignore the orders of his commanders or to declare that he would refuse to follow orders from the President if those orders included detaining or disarming U.S. citizens. That overly broad standard would mean that Stein would not act against Adam Gadahn, the American who is presently the media adviser for Al Qaeda.
Stein’s story was broadcast on Fox News’ America Live with Megyn Kelly. Fox News also featured the story on both the Fox News web site and Fox Nation, where Stein has been treated as a hero for standing up to President Obama. However, he has a pretty thin case to make for his patriotism when he posts comments like this: “I say screw Obama. I will not follow orders given by him to me.” That comment has since been deleted and Stein says that he later qualified his comment to reflect that he would only disobey unlawful orders. But you can still find this comment on his Facebook page without qualification: “Obama is the “Domestic Enemy” our oath speaks about.”
That goes far beyond Stein’s assertion that he was merely stating what the military code says about following unlawful orders. It is an exhibition of overt disloyalty that the military ought not to abide. In fact, it designates the President as an enemy of the state, which would make him a suitable target, in Stein’s warped view, for hostile action or assassination. And that is exactly the view that Fox News, and their audience of pseudo-patriots, are applauding. Disgusting, isn’t it?
[Update] On April 6, a military board recommended that Stein be dismissed from service with “other than an honorable discharge” (i.e. dishonorable).
“The three-member Marine Corps administrative board at Camp Pendleton found that Sgt. Gary Stein had committed misconduct by posting anti-Obama comments on a Facebook page, calling the comments ‘contemptuous.’ […] The final decision on Stein’s status will be made by the commanding general of the Marine Corp Recruit Depot San Diego.”
[Update II] On April 25, 2012, the Marines formally discharged Stein as the commanding general of the base accepted the administrative board’s recommendation for discharge.
If you thought that the psychotic lunacy of those who still believe that President Obama is not an American citizen had reached its peak, you have obviously underestimated just how severely demented this crowd is. Despite all the evidence to the contrary, these acutely fixated cretins cling to their fables and even expand on them ad absurdum.
The latest addendum to the Birther Chronicles comes from (where else) Jerome Corsi of WorldNetDaily. Corsi is the loser whose book “Where’s the Birth Certificate?” was published just days after the White House released the long-form copy of his birth certificate for which the looney right had been clamoring. Corsi begins his WND article by asking…
“Did the parents of former Weather Underground terrorist Bill Ayers help finance Barack Obama’s Harvard education? Did Ayers’ mother believe Obama was a foreign student? And was the young Obama convinced at the time – long before he even entered politics – that he was going to become president of the United States?”
All three of those questions were answered in the affirmative by a retired mail carrier that Corsi interviewed. Allen Hulton, claims to have had the route that serviced the home of Tom and Mary Ayers, the parents of former Weatherman, Bill Ayers. Hulton told Corsi…
“One day, Mary came to the door when I came up to the house with the mail,” he remembers. “After a greeting, she started enthusiastically talking to me about this young black student they were helping out, and she referred to him as a foreign student.”
Hulton went on to say that he recalled Mary telling him the name of the foreign student, which he later forgot, but said that it sounded African. So that pretty much settles it. A mail carrier remembers a customer on his route thirty years ago talking about a student with an African sounding name. If that isn’t conclusive evidence of Obama being supported by the parents of a domestic terrorist, what is?
Setting aside for the moment that none of this can be proven because Mary Ayers is deceased, it also makes little sense from even the most conspiratorial perspective. The implication is that there was some connection between Obama and Bill Ayers’ parents, and that the whole family was part of some anti-American cabal. However, Thomas Ayers, Bill’s father, was not exactly the model of a revolutionary extremist. In fact, he was CEO and chairman of Commonwealth Edison, the largest electric utility in Illinois. Ayers also served on the board of directors of Sears, G.D. Searle, Chicago Pacific Corp., Zenith Corp., Northwest Industries, General Dynamics Corp. of St. Louis, First National Bank of Chicago, the Chicago Cubs, and the Tribune Co. A socialist subversive if there ever was one. Hulton even described him as having “a Marxist viewpoint.” Of course, just like all the other board members of giant, capitalist corporations.
But this conspiracy theory is just getting started. Corsi continued his tale with an allegation that Obama had confessed to being complicit in a plot to usurp the presidency. When Hulton asked the student about his plans for the future, he was taken aback by the response:
“He looked right at me and told me he was going to be president of the United States,” Hulton says. “There was a little bit of a grin on his face when he said it – he sounded sure of himself, but not arrogant. I know how people will say things because they have an ambition, but it did not come across that way,” Hulton says. “It came across as if this young black male was telling me he was going to be president, almost as if it were the statement of a scientific fact that had already been determined, as if his being president had been already pre-arranged.”
Indeed. Who could dispute that account straight from the horse’s mouth? And it surely is not suspicious that Hulton is claiming that Obama casually disclosed the treasonous scheme of which he was an integral part. It is perfectly reasonable that Obama would spill the details of this conspiracy to a complete stranger. All of the attempts to overthrow the American government that I have clandestinely participated in always encouraged us to tell people we had never met before exactly what we were planning. (Oops. I may have said too much).
The Birther conspiracy has always been an exercise in idiocy. Despite having never had any basis in fact, it required its adherents to believe that the whole thing began as a plot to usurp the presidency of the United States. And now the Manchurian part of the scheme has been articulated out loud. They really do believe that Obama was created in a Kenyan petri dish, grown to adulthood in a communist laboratory funded by George Soros, handed a fictional resume and a pre-programmed Teleprompter, and escorted to the White House by some alien power that had the ability to hypnotize a majority of the American voters.
Seriously, these numbskulls are certifiable. I suppose the First Amendment protects their right to say astonishingly stupid things, but out of concern for public safety, they should not be allowed to operate heavy machinery, drive cars, or otherwise engage in activities that could bring harm to themselves and others. If they can’t be committed, I hope at least that they get the medical and pharmaceutical treatment they so desperately need.
[Update:] A follow up at WND, with no byline, was posted alleging that there is now a “full-blown media cover-up” of this ludicrous story. As evidence they cite this article, so get ready for some incoherent rightist rhetoric in the comments (they’ve already begun).
WND chief, Joseph Farah writes that this story was “deliberately spiked” by the mainstream media and even that “Big time talk-radio was tipped off on the story, as well – in advance. They didn’t bite, either.” Gee, I wonder why. Could it be because it’s insane? Farah, however, consoles himself with the fantasy that…
“…millions got the first-person, eyewitness evidence that Barack Obama was helped through Harvard by the family of domestic terrorist Bill Ayers back in the late 1980s.”
Farah obviously has a very low threshold for what constitutes evidence. In this case it’s a thirty year old memory of a brief and trivial conversation that is uncorroborated and didn’t even affirm what the source alleges. But that’s enough for the dimwits that read WND.
Ever since Glenn Beck announced that Barack Obama has “a deep-seated hatred of white people,” the conservative media has searched for conclusive proof that would unambiguously affirm that the President has a long standing racial bias against his own mother and her familial heritage.
Having failed to uncover any credible evidence, the race-obsessed right-wingers have proffered wildly delusional theories to advance their contention that Obama is fundamentally prejudiced against whites. The latest attempt at this characterization is the effort to smear his Harvard law professor, Derrick Bell, as a some sort of black supremacist merely because he advocated a more diverse faculty at Harvard Law School where he was the first black professor to receive tenure.
Continuing with this venture into the college history of the President, these rightist investigators have now expanded their inquiries into the past of the First Lady, Michelle Obama, who also attended Harvard. What they found is sure to blow the roof off of the White House. Apparently there is video documentation of someone that may or may not be Ms. Obama participating in a demonstration at the office of the law school’s Dean.
The video comes from the archives of WGBH, who covered the demonstration in May of 1988. It shows some students engaging in a peaceful protest to get the school to hire more minority teachers.
The discovery of this video is attributed to J. Christian Adams, a notorious race-baiter who has accused Obama of promoting a racially divisive America. Adams published his findings back on May 7, in his column at Pajamas Media where he wrote…
“A treasure trove of information is coming out regarding Barack Obama’s time in college. Over at the Breitbart sites, we are learning how Obama inserted himself into a fight to implement hiring on the basis of race at Harvard Law School. The Obama tapes also seem to show the other Obama – Michelle. […] In May 1988, Harvard Law students, borrowing from Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals, and foreshadowing the Occupy movement of 2011, occupied the Harvard Law School’s dean’s office.”
Isn’t it interesting that Adams employs buzzwords like “Alinsky” and “Occupy” to describe what everyone else would recognize as garden variety protests? Adams goes on to state that one of the students in the video “appears to be Michelle Obama.” That’s right, he has no confirmation that the woman seen briefly from a distance in a 22 year old video is actually the future First Lady. Yet that doesn’t prevent him from publishing an article that not only alleges her participation, but infers that it has some meaning beyond the sort of standard campus activism that is a part of college life and a cherished freedom granted by the Constitution.
The Adams article was later picked up by the ultra-conservative DailyCaller, where they repeated the assertion that the “footage shows a young woman who appears to be Michelle Obama.” This is how the Right-Wing Noise Machine operates as they attempt to spread their derisive propaganda out to the racist audience they have so carefully cultivated. The next step should be an appearance on Fox News to discuss this bombshell.
The fact that these pseudo-journalists have no shame in disseminating false stories with nakedly prejudiced inferences should not surprise anybody. Recently the Breitbrats published an allegation that Derrick Bell had visited the White House twice in 2010 without first checking to ascertain whether it was the Harvard law professor (it wasn’t). And the right has been asserting for years that there is a mystery video of Ms. Obama using the term “whitey,” but it has never materialized.
And therein lies the harm. The object of these rightist rags is not to be accurate or honest. It is to plant seeds of hatred that they know will take root even after they have been exposed as false. There are people who currently believe that the “whitey” tapes have already been released. And as much as 30% of the Republican electorate thinks that the President is a Muslim. These distortions of reality exist because they were deliberately planned out with the knowledge that any subsequent fact-checking would not hinder their infestation into the right-wing community that is already predisposed to believe these racist lies.
Clearly there is a measure of desperation setting in amongst the right. These slanderous assertions are almost comical in their ineptness. They harken back to the Sarah Palin pronouncements that Obama was “pallin around with terrorists.” Those wild allegations came near the end of a campaign that they likely knew they were about to lose. And these new allegations are popping up now for the same reason: The right is increasingly fearful that their incompetent and unpopular candidates are headed for defeat. They also realize that their policy platform, consisting mostly of propping up oil companies and pushing down women, is alienating the electorate in a big way.
The sad thing is that we are still seven months from the election and these sort of nauseating and divisive attacks are probably going to get worse. Our only hope is for the public to express themselves and to make sure that there is a price to pay for spreading hate and lies. November cannot come soon enough.
A new Fox News poll reports that President Obama is in pretty decent electoral shape despite the concerted efforts of Fox News to sabotage the administration.
The poll puts Obama’s job rating in favorable territory with 47% approving and 45% not approving. On Obama’s personal favorability, Fox finds him doing even better at 50-47. That exceeds the favorability of the GOP contenders who are all underwater: Romney (39-49), Santorum (35-47), and Gingrich (23-67).
Given those numbers, it is not surprising that the head-to-head match ups between Obama and the Republicans also favor the President: vs. Romney (46-42), Santorum (51-39), and Gingrich (53-35). The survey included an additional question that inquired whether respondents were voting “for” Obama or “against” Romney. On that measure Obama creamed Romney with 73% indicating that they were affirmatively voting for Obama, but only 40% said the same of Romney.
On a number of general attitude questions, Obama also fared well. When asked whether they thought that there were signs the economy was turning around, 58% said yes. When asked if the Obama administration had made the economy better or worse, 44% said better, 42% said worse. Even when asked about whether Obama was responsible for the increase in gas prices, 52% said that he was not, and only 40% said that he was. Again, this despite the incessant propagandizing by virtually everybody on Fox News.
The poll also included a rather peculiarly phrased question that inquired as to whether Obama was “happy” about increasing gas prices “because it will encourage the United States to find alternative energy sources.” In the article Fox published about the poll they included only the number of respondents who answered affirmatively (31%), but omitted the number who disagreed, which happened to be a majority (50%). There was no question as to whether Mitt Romney or Rick Santorum were happy about rising gas prices because it would benefit their electoral prospects. And, let’s face it, the notion that an incumbent president would welcome higher gas prices in an election year is just plain madness.
A couple of other curious notes: Fox had a breakout of responses by liberals, but not by conservatives. Also, they asked whether Obama had taken responsibility for the economy or was blaming others (38-47). But they didn’t ask to whom they thought responsibility belonged (Obama, Bush, congress, Wall Street, etc.), as most other polls do.
Some of the most interesting results in this survey concerned the Tea Party (remember them?). The Fox News article about the poll left them out entirely – not a single mention, as if they ceased to exist. However, the full listing of results may explain why. It confirms that the Tea Party is wildly out of touch with the public at large, and even with their fellow Republicans. On questions about Obama, health care, the economy, foreign policy, and gas prices, the Tea Party exhibits an extreme hostility. Their opposition to the president and his policies was often 20 percentage points worse than the GOP. For example, when asked if Obama is qualified to be commander-in-chief, 63% of Republicans said no, compared to 82% of Tea Partiers. The total of all respondents was 64% qualified, 34% not qualified.
This disparity may also explain why the Tea Party, according to this Fox News poll, was viewed favorably by 30% of respondents and unfavorably by a 51% majority. However, it does not explain why anybody in Washington or the media continue to pay attention to them. They are a widely despised extremist minority who contribute nothing but obstruction and division to the political discourse. It’s no wonder that even Fox is avoiding them.
Fox is also avoiding promoting the results of their own poll. Too much good news for the President? There has been little coverage of it on Fox News. The Fox Nation web site has ignored it completely, while publishing a competing poll from CBS News that showed the President’s numbers lower. One segment on Fox was on the O’Reilly Factor and had Bill O’Reilly interviewing that well known expert economist, comedian Dennis Miller, about the Fox poll results. Miller summed up his opinion with the usual substance and intellect of a Fox News contributor:
“I’m shocked he [Obama] has any approval rating. You know why? Because this is crap what’s going on. It’s crap right now. Everybody knows it’s crap. […] Everybody is telling them it’s great and this is exactly what they hoped for. But everybody knows it’s crap. […] They’re going to tell you it’s going great, but most people know it’s crap right now. And that’s why his numbers are going down. Because it’s coming to the end of his first term, and it looks like crap to people.”
How can you argue with crap-filled logic like that?
I guess it had to come to this. The undisguised racism of many pundits on the far right has at least avoided the most vile expressions of their hate when anyone outside of their private circles was listening. Today the hate came bubbling to the surface as Rush Limbaugh said this while mocking the way he thinks liberals view Republicans:
“You notice how everything Republicans do is venal? Everything is calculated for political advantage? Everything is done to try to harm our little boy president, Barack Obama?”
There it is – out in the open. Although this is nothing new for Limbaugh. For three years now he has been referring to Obama as a “man-child.” And what is a “man-child” but a boy. It was his way of calling the President boy without bearing the consequences of being more literal. His listeners knew what he was saying.
This sort of disrespect runs deep through the right-wing media. Fox Nation posted this graphic last year along with a story about Obama:
And even worse, they deliberately mangled the results of a poll in order to run a story with this headline: Obama Has A Big Problem With White Women. Could they have come up with a more racially charged banner with which to introduce a story on a public opinion poll? This framing deliberately recalls the worst of a hate-filled era characterized by irrational fears of marauding black predators stalking innocent and vulnerable Caucasian virgins. I’m just a little surprised that Fox didn’t go with this headline: “Obama Polling: Where Da White Women At?”
Perhaps this is an intentional ploy on Limbaugh’s part. He has been taking considerable heat lately for having insulted Sandra Fluke, a law student who did nothing more than speak her mind on a matter of importance to her and all women. Limbaugh has lost dozens of advertisers. His show airs in some markets with only free PSAs (public service announcements) or even dead air. This may be his way of trying to divert attention from that controversy to something he thinks will be less volatile. Good luck with that, Rush.
Sensing that his O’Reilly Factor was losing the competition for most ludicrous punditry to his old nemesis Rush Limbaugh, Bill O’Reilly has just uncovered the conspiracy of the century. It’s a convoluted scheme that has confounded all other pundit participants. O’Reilly laid out the basics in his Talking Points Memo segment tonight.
O’Reilly: “As we reported last night, the Factor believes the Sandra Fluke contraception controversy was manufactured to divert attention away from the Obama administration’s disastrous decision to force Catholic non-profit organizations to provide insurance coverage for birth control and the morning after pill.”
Did you catch it? The Factor (Bill’s pet name for himself) believes that Fluke was sent (by Obama? Soros? Fidel?) to divert attention away from the perilous issue of health insurance coverage for contraceptives by – get this – talking about health insurance coverage for contraceptives. What could be more devious? It was a brilliant subterfuge, but not brilliant enough to fool O’Reilly. The Obama team should never have tried to outsmart the Factor. Especially with lame antics like this one.
O’Reilly: “Nancy Pelosi staged a mock hearing starring Sandra. After which Rush Limbaugh made derogatory comments elevating her to left-wing martyrdom. So it seems there is a powerful presence behind Sandra Fluke.”
Only O’Reilly could have figured out that Rush Limbaugh was one of the conspirators. The plan would never have come so close to success were it not for Limbaugh’s ham-handed incivility toward Fluke, or so it appeared. And it was O’Reilly who recognized that Limbaugh was the powerful presence behind her.
In hindsight it seems obvious that this whole affair was designed to benefit the President, as O’Reilly observed. Somehow the President’s strategists concocted a plot wherein an unknown law student would manage to manipulate the Republican chairman of a congressional committee to refuse to let her participate, and then she would trick the country’s top radio talk show host into verbally assaulting her. What could be simpler?
O’Reilly even nailed down a suspicious connection. Apparently Fluke is now represented by the PR firm of former White House director of communications, Anita Dunn. And even though that relationship began after Fluke had become embroiled in this national controversy, O’Reilly still thinks there is something significant about her hooking up with a Democratic affiliated firm that employs someone who left her job at the White House over two years ago. A lesser mind might have mistakenly thought that Fluke would sign with a GOP PR firm. And it was a stroke of genius for Dunn to wait almost two and a half years before executing this plot so that people might forget about her presidential resume.
You have to hand to O’Reilly for persevering in his quest to pierce the cloak of secrecy surrounding this chicanery. After all these years the old boy still has it.
Yesterday was the day that the video Andrew Breitbart promised of a racially divisive Barack Obama in his days as a student at Harvard was released. It was almost universally panned as a pathetic and desperate boatload of nothing. After first yammering that the video posted by Buzzfeed (scooping Breitbart) was “selectively edited,” the Breitbartians posted what they said was the “uncut” video. Their version contained about two seconds more that consisted entirely of Obama hugging Prof. Derrick Bell, whom he had just introduced at a rally.
Since the video itself was proven to have no material evidence of anything the least bit detrimental to Obama, much less the cataclysmic data that would doom his career, the Breitbartians resorted to Plan B: Demonize Prof. Bell and tie him around Obama’s neck. This was a coordinated plot that began with Breitbart editor-in-chief Joel Pollak robotically repeating the mantra that “Derrick Bell was the Jeremiah Wright of academia.” Pollak even went on CNN and admitted that the video was irrelevant, and when Soledad O’Brein asked him “Then where’s the bombshell, I don’t see it?” Pollak responded that “The bombshell is the revelation of the relationship between Barack Obama and Derrick Bell.” But that wasn’t any revelation at all.
The argument that the Breitbartians are making rests on their assertion that Bell’s writings on Critical Race Theory define him as a racial radical. In fact, CRT is an aggregation of legal concepts that bring together law, politics, economics, etc., in a broad-based study of race and power in society. It posits that there are institutional barriers to eradicating racism that must be addressed at the root level. Those barriers are evident in things like employment practices and school admissions. Another example is the judicial system that incarcerates a higher percentage of African-Americans than their representation in the population. Affirming that example is the fact that crack cocaine, used by more African-Americans than whites, is punishable by sentences ten times more severe than powder cocaine, for which you find more white offenders.
Nevertheless, the Breitbartians are deliberately misinterpreting the legal theory in order to condemn its proponents, including Bell. In this way they can assert that Obama, as a result of his having studied at Harvard, is also a racial radical. The object is to incite fear among those who are ill-informed that Obama aspires to threaten their status in society. He is coming after your jobs, your schools, your churches, all the trappings of your comfortable, privileged lives.
In the wake of the initial flop of the video’s release, the right-wing media has been redoubling its efforts to stir up a phony controversy. Fox Nation has posted multiple stories on the subject (it has been at the top of their page for two days running). Fox News has featured it on their broadcasts, notably the video “exclusive” presented by Sean Hannity. Ironically, Fox Nation posted a video of a debate about Bell between Michelle Malkin and Juan Williams, but edited out Williams entirely.
Note the edit at about 2:20 where Hannity says that Juan’s gonna disagree, but then fades to Malkin saying “No, no. no.”. What Williams said in between was…
“Well, first of all, I must say, I thought this was going to be so much more. I thought this was going to be the smoking gun, as you describe it. But it really didn’t come too much. I mean, I just don’t think that there is.”
And that’s all that Williams was permitted to say in the entire segment, but they even cut that out when they put it online. And then they have the nerve to complain, falsely, that others “selectively edited” video.
Pollak and his Breitbart colleague Ben Shapiro have been making the rounds on the lamestream media. On CNN they argued with Soledad O’Brien over the meaning of Critical Race Theory, but spoke very little about what any of it had to do with Obama, despite O’Brien’s attempts to steer them back to the topic. That’s a tactic designed to keep the focus off of substance and aimed squarely at innuendo and slander. For good measure they threw in a bashing of the media for trying to suppress the video (for what reason, they never make clear), and to silence them (even while they are speaking on the air).
For its part, the Breitbart web site has been piling on with articles that reek of racism. One article was authored by J. Christian Adams, a notorious race-baiter who has accused Eric Holder’s Justice Department of coddling civil rights violators if they happened to be black. He wrote that…
“Both Obama and Bell demanded that Harvard hire professors on the basis of race. […] The Obama-Bell connection is the latest in a pattern of Barack Obama’s associations with individuals who promoted a racially divisive America.”
That’s an open assault on affirmative action, which was not developed to produce hiring on the basis of race, but to put an end to it. Adams also repeated the lie that Obama had appeared with a member of the New Black Panther Party. In fact, Obama attended a civil rights rally that was attended by thousands of people, one of whom happened to be an NBPP member. Obama had no control over who came to a massive, public rally. Adams also characterized cases of civil rights abuse as “crackpot racial grievances.” That pretty much reveals his personal bias.
Another story posted by the Breitbartians alleged that “Obama Forced His Students To Read Bell at the University of Chicago Law School.” Their evidence was a document describing a course that Obama was teaching. The course was “Current Issues in Racism and the Law.” It would be difficult to teach such a class without the textbook materials by one of this generations most respected scholars on that subject. But the allegation is made even worse by that use of the word “forced” as if it were under duress. By that measure isn’t every student forced to read something? In fact, many of the references to Bell’s writings specifically said that they were optional reading.
Meanwhile, over at NewsBusters, there was an article that alleged that the non-event video was being suppressed as part of a conspiracy orchestrated by George Soros (Isn’t it always?). The evidence of that was that Soros’ foundations had made donations to Harvard (where the video took place) and WGBH (the public TV station that owned the video). Using their logic I can surmise that the Koch brothers are behind this whole phony video scandal because they have made contributions to NewsBusters.
And, believe it or not, they even have a Plan C: It’s a Cover Up! The video was a bust. The racial attacks could backfire. So if all else fails, blame it on a massive cover up. The Breitbartians took on another black Harvard professor, Charles Ogletree, by posting a video wherein he said that “We hid this during the 2008 campaign…” He was referring to the video of Obama at Harvard. Of course there would have been no reason to do that since, if anything, the video shows Obama in a positive light. The truth is that Ogletree was joking. He even laughed immediately after, which proves that he was humorously dismissing the throw-away line. but, not surprisingly, the humor-challenged righties didn’t get, even though Ogletree’s audience did.
The absence of any substance on the video has led to a redirection by the right to their usual stance against Obama – he’s black. His associates are black. And they advocate for radical concepts like equal justice under the law. They support fairness in hiring and other social contracts. They oppose discrimination.
If anyone is advancing a racialist philosophy, it’s the right-wingers who are peddling this repulsive nonsense. And if there is anything positive to take away from this, it is that they have once again shown their true colors. It isn’t about a video of a young future president. It isn’t about health care or oil prices or deficits. It is, and always has been, about one thing for these meatheads. They just can’t accept a black man in their White House.
The latest addendum to the Birther Chronicles comes from (where else) Jerome Corsi of WorldNetDaily. Corsi is the loser whose book “Where’s the Birth Certificate?” was published just days after the White House released the long-form copy of his birth certificate for which the looney right had been clamoring. Corsi begins his WND article by asking…
Sensing that his O’Reilly Factor was losing the competition for most ludicrous punditry to his old nemesis Rush Limbaugh, Bill O’Reilly has just uncovered the conspiracy of the century. It’s a convoluted scheme that has confounded all other pundit participants. O’Reilly laid out the basics in his Talking Points Memo segment tonight.